Founder of Irish co-operative movement to be commemorated

A FOUNDER of the Irish Co-operative Movement will be honoured at his birthplace in Churchtown, Co Cork, on Saturday.

A plaque will be unveiled at Mount Corbett House, where Robert Anderson was born in 1860.

He was chosen by Horace Plunkett in 1889 to be Ireland’s first co-op organiser.

Robert Anderson, who passed away on Christmas Day in 1942, spent more than 40 years promoting co-operation among the rural communities of Ireland.

It was the wish of the late Billy Nagle of Buttevant, a past president of the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, that Mr Anderson should be commemorated in his native Churchtown.

Mr Nagle died unexpectedly last year. But now his wish is to be fulfilled by Churchtown Village Renewal Committee.

His widow, Máiréad, will unveil a specially inscribed ICOS commissioned plaque at Mount Corbett House, now the home of horse trainer and former national hunt jockey Jim Culloty and his wife, Suzanne.

Noel Linehan, one of the chief organisers of the ceremony, said the work done by Mr Anderson in establishing and promoting the spirit of co-operation has lessons for the Ireland of today.

Mr Anderson, a past president of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), the name of the co-op’s umbrella body before it was changed to ICOS, is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.

Mr Linehan said it was fitting that the wishes of Billy Nagle, who was a champion of the co-op ethos in modern times, is now being met.

Elected president of ICOS for the period 1990-1995, Mr Nagle served in this role during its centenary in 1994. He was also a recipient of the Horace Plunkett Award for co-operative endeavour.

He was president of COGECA (European Association of Agriculture and Fishing Co-operatives) in 1992-93 and represented European co-operatives in discussions with the EU Council of Ministers, the European Commission and others in the CAP Reform and GATT (now WTO) negotiations.